Why it works: Meat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,529 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pot Roast
Ingredients
Directions
Brown the meat
Melt the fat in a strong iron pan until smoking hot.
Brown the meat quickly on all sides.
Cook the roast
Cover the pan with a lid and cook as you would in an oven or over a fire.
Turn the meat frequently and baste it often.
Cook until done, which may take longer than in an oven.
Make the gravy
To make gravy, pour off the fat, add 1 teaspoon flour and salt to the dripping-tin.
Gradually pour in ½ pint boiling water and stir until it boils.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Meat + flourtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,529 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Meat
- Browning and slow cooking turn the tough cut tender and give savory flavor.
- Flour
- Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy as it cooks with the fat.
- Fat for frying
- Conducts heat for browning the meat and carries flavor into the gravy.
The step that matters
Brown the meat quickly on all sides. Searing in very hot fat creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction. Crowding or a cool pan causes steaming, leaving the meat grey and bland.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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